The present invention relates to a technique for aiding customization of an analysis system. Particularly, it relates to a method for listing tables having columns to be added, deleted or modified from a relational database when a dimension is added, deleted or modified in an analysis schema of a multidimensional database (MDB).
Computer systems, magnetic cards and IC cards have become popular in the general public in recent years, so that information systems (data warehouses) for storing and managing customer's attribute data such as names, addresses, etc. and purchase history have been able to be constructed by house cards in wide business categories such as department stores, specialty stores, household electrical appliances discount stores, supermarkets, etc. Business Intelligence Solutions using the constructed data warehouses for planning corporate strategy have attracted a great deal of public attention recently.
Business Intelligence is a general term of applications and techniques for aiding better decision-making so that collected, stored and analyzed data can be used by business persons. Business Intelligence application software includes decision-making system, inquiry, reporting, on-line analytical processing (OLAP), statistical analysis, prediction, and data mining. OLAP has been described in E. Thomsen et al., Microsoft OLAP solutions, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1999, pp. 1–3.
As described in M. Whitehorn et al., Business Intelligence: The IBM Solution, Springer, 1999, pp. 10–11, Business Intelligence application software is known as a combination of a relational database (RDB) and a multidirectional database (MDB) or OLAP. In OLAP, the structure of the multidimensional database (MDB) is described by a multidimensional schema (MD schema).
There is a growing tendency to shorten the periods required for constructing these information systems. To shorten the constructing periods, the following techniques are known.
One is provision of packages classified by industry or business activity. For example, IBM StartNow Solutions for e-business, 2002, pp. 1–3, integrally provide hardware, software, analysis model and introduction-aid service classified by industry, specialized in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). (StartNow Solutions for e-business is a registered trademark of IBM.)
RedBrick Warehouse provided by Infocom is a database exclusively used for constructing a data warehouse. It provides a tool called Red Brick Warehouse Administrator for aiding design and construction of a data warehouse. Red Brick Warehouse Administrator provides GUI for defining the relationship among RDB tables constituting a data warehouse and GUI for making a rough estimate of required disk capacity. (RedBrick Warehouse and Red Brick Warehouse Administrator are registered trademarks of Infocom)
Oracle9i Warehouse Builder iDS 2.0, 2002, pp. 1–5 has disclosed Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB) for designing, mounting and managing a data warehouse. Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB) is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. When OWB is used, RDB tables, MD schemata, Extraction, Transformation and Loading (ETL) jobs can be designed by GUI.